ParaNet BBS/stoneheg
From KB42
ParaNet BBS/stoneheg
| File Name: | stoneheg.txt |
|---|---|
| Author: | Unknown |
| Date: | Unknown |
| Posting BBS: | Unknown |
| BBS Main Page: | ParaNet Main Page |
| Key Words: | ParaNet, UFO, Ufology |
This file was provided by ParaNet(sm) Information Service and its network of international affiliates. You may freely distribute this file as long as this header remains intact. Date Prepared: August 6, 1991 Contributed by: Internet ============================================================ For further information on ParaNet(sm), contact: Michael Corbin ParaNet Information Service P.O. Box 172 Wheatridge, CO 80034-0172 or FidoNet 1:104/422 Internet mcorbin@scicom.alphacdc.com =========================================================== (C) 1991 ParaNet Information Service. All Rights Reserved Unless Copyrighted by Author. These files may not be excerpted unless prior arrangements are made with ParaNet. ============================================================ (4880) Tue 30 Jul 91 12:07p By: Susan O'brien To: All Re: Re: Stonehenge St: Sent Reply in 5082 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @UFGATE newsin 1.27 From: sobrien@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Susan O'Brien) Date: 30 Jul 91 01:15:04 GMT Organization: LMSC - Information Services Message-ID: <1991Jul30.011504.13659@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> Newsgroups: sci.space In article <326@rml.UUCP> jack@rml.UUCP (jack hagerty) writes: >There is a replica of Stonehenge built in south central Washington, just >north of the Columbia river. It was built in the '20s as a WWI memorial > [stuff deleted] >replica is only about 15 miles south of the totality band for the Feb '79 >eclipse. I drove past the replica on my way to Goldendale (near the >centerline) and there was a huge crowd of neo-Druids swarming around >the place. They apparently didn't care that Stonehenge was already ancient >when the Druids "appropriated" it. Even though I am not a Druid (neo- or otherwise), I was at the Stonehenge replica in Washington for the '79 eclipse. I just HAVE to tell my story. You made a mistake going on to Goldendale, instead of stopping at the Stonehenge replica. Did you see the eclipse there? I heard it was clouded over in Goldendale. Correct me if I'm wrong. But we saw it at Stonehenge. My group (three teenagers) and I stayed some distance from the replica itself, because the Druid folk had pretty much occupied it & we were a little afraid of them. The cloud cover was pretty thick, & everybody there, Druid or not, was very unhappy about this. It didn't look like there was any chance it would clear. Fifteen or 20 minutes before totality, we became aware of a rhythmic chanting starting to rise from the area of the Stonehenge replica itself -- the Druids doing some kind of weird Druid thing to move the clouds, we thought. We couldn't make it out at first, but it began to spread outwards, with more and more people joining in, and we finally could hear ... "Clouds, Clouds, go away, come again some other day! Clouds, Clouds, go away, come again some other day! Clouds, Clouds, go away, come again some other day! Clouds, Clouds, go away, come again some other day! ..." What would you do? We all, EVERYBODY, joined in and chanted. A diamond-shaped hole opened up in the clouds and there was the crescent sun. Ripples of shadow on the ground. Totality happened. Flaming ring in sky. Stars coming out. Much screaming and exultation and wonderment. My younger sister grabbing my arm and shaking it while I'm trying to take pictures, and saying "Stop taking pictures and LOOK! LOOK!" She was right. I did. Blinding sun peeks out, giving us the diamond ring effect. Totality ends. Excitement subsides. Clouds close over. Someone has since told me that there was probably a meteorological reason why the clouds opened and closed right when they did -- the cooling in the moon shadow, downdrafts, updrafts, something. I prefer to think it was the psychic energy of a thousand people all chanting "Clouds, clouds, go away ..." and truly meaning it. -- Sue O'Brien, Sunnyvale, Calif. sobrien@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (this .sig intentionally left boring) * Origin: Paranet(sm) - The world's leading UFO Investigative News Network ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (5082) Wed 31 Jul 91 12:02p By: Greer%utdssa.dnet%utadnx@utspan.spa To: All Re: Re: Stonehenge St: Sent Reply chain 4880 5089 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @UFGATE newsin 1.27 From: greer%utdssa.dnet%utadnx@utspan.span.nasa.gov Date: 30 Jul 91 19:49:25 GMT Organization: The Internet Message-ID: <9107301946.AA25786@gemini.arc.nasa.gov> Newsgroups: sci.space In SPACE Digest V13 #920, agate!maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU!fcrary@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Frank Crary) writes: >In article <179@snll-arpagw.UUCP> jdsmith@snll-arpagw.UUCP (smith jeffrey d) writes: >>I have had this nagging doubt ever since we started discussing Stonehenge >>and its astronomical properties: wouldn't the ~24,000-year precession >>of the Earth on its axis affect such things as the most northerly rising >>of the moon? Stonehenge was built a significant portion of 24,000 years >>ago, i.e. one can't neglect the Earths precession. Or doesn't it affect >>the astronomical events that Stonehenge "monitors"? >> >I don't know about the north-most rising point of the Moon, but the precession >of the equinoxes would NOT effect the position of the equinoxes (e.g. the >azamuth of sunrise and set on that day. I belive the precession changes the >time but not the place of these events. (E.g. the inclination of the ecliptic >plane does not change.) > > Frank Crary Shortly after this thread started I went and checked out Gerald Hawkins' _Stonehenge Decode_ from the library. Mr. Crary is correct about the precession of the equinoxes, but the Earth's nutation, the wobbling of its spin axis, causes sunrise to move to the right by about 0.02 degree per century over the period in question. Since the megalith construction at Stonhenge was completed about 3500 years ago, this would make for a difference in the rising point of about 0.7 degree. The angular diameter of the Sun from Earth is about 0.5 degree. A few interesting points, not noted in previous discussions, from the book: * The Druids could not have had anything to do with either the design or construction of Stonehenge. * The first construction at the site was completed around 1900 BPE. * The megalithic construction was not part of the original design, though care was taken to ensure that this later (1600 BPE) addition did not disrupt the original. * Some of the openings in the trilithons (three-stone structures) line up with sunrise of the equinoxes and solstices while others line up with moonrise corresponding to the extrema of the Moon's position in the sky. Alignment errors in these are within about 1.5 degree (the worst errors occur with stones that have been reerected in modern times). * Items from all over Europe and from the all around the Mediterranean were found in graves of those who constructed the megaliths. Possesion of an accurate calendar is very important to the growth of crops. The original Stonehenge construction, consisting of ditches and embankments, was sufficient to play a very important part in ensuring for those who built it a stable and economically successful society. Today the US faces a national agricultural emergency because GOES-NEXT won't be ready before GOES-7 dies. I wonder if the ancients ever had such problems. References: Gerald S. Hawkins, _Stonehenge Decoded_, Garden City: Doubleday, 1965. _____________ Dale M. Greer, whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the Center for Space Sciences, U.T. at Dallas, UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER While the Bill of Rights burns, Congress fiddles. -- anonymous lawyer * Origin: Paranet(sm) - The world's leading UFO Investigative News Network ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (5089) Wed 31 Jul 91 12:02p By: Mark Brader To: All Re: Re: Stonehenge St: Sent Reply chain 5082 5587 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @UFGATE newsin 1.27 From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Date: 30 Jul 91 10:01:23 GMT Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Message-ID: <1991Jul30.100123.5757@sq.sq.com> Newsgroups: sci.space Sci.space is clearly not the right newsgroup for discussion of Stonehenge; any of sci.astro, soc.history, or sci.archaeology would be better. But I suspect that the topic is dying down and I'll continue with it here. > I have had this nagging doubt ever since we started discussing Stonehenge > and its astronomical properties: wouldn't the ~24,000-year precession > of the Earth on its axis affect such things ...? That's 26,000, actually. But the answer is "No, not really". The alignments demonstrated for Stonehenge involve only the sun, moon, and earth, and precession of the earth's axis doesn't change the angles involved. Anyway, when Hawkins checked the various alignments of Stonehenge against the celestial positions, he *used* positions computed for 3500 or 4000 years ago. I think it may be of some interest to describe Stonehenge and the sequence of its construction in more detail. All of what I state as fact below is taken from the book "Stonehenge Decoded", by Gerald S. Hawkins in collaboration with John B. White, Doubleday, 1965, rev. 1966. Some aspects of the sequence of construction are only conjectured, but I do not distinguish much here, in the interest of keeping this article shorter. And of course it's possible that newer information has arisen. In this article I will use British style and refer to the summer solstice as "midsummer"; this has the advantage of brevity. Likewise for winter. The first or Stonehenge I phase of construction happened about 1900 BC. There was a double ring of earthworks -- an outer bank 2-3 feet high and about 380 feet in diameter, and an inner bank at least 6 feet high and about 320 feet in diameter. In the direction of midsummer sunrise there was a gap in the banks and a number of upright stones were set in and beyond that gap. One of these, now called the "heel stone" for unknown reasons, was surrounded by a circular bank, presumably marking it as special. Just inside the inner ditch was a circle of 56 evenly spaced holes, called the Aubrey holes after John Aubrey who (re)discovered them in the 17th century AD. The circle is 288 feet in diameter and the holes are all placed with less than 2 feet of error either radially or circumferentially. Hawkins's key conjectures is that this number 56 relates to the period of the "regression of the nodes" of the moon's orbit (that is, the precession of its orbital plane) which is 18.61 years or about 56/3 years. This is an eclipse cycle. The idea is that one or more markers would be moved around this circle, one step per year, with one or more of the positions being considered as significant when the markers reached them. Next, perhaps, was the erecting for the four "station stones", which stood on mounds at four points more or less on the Aubrey hole circle, forming a near rectangle. The short sides of the rectangle are parallel to the alignment from the center to the heel stone, and this line points to the midsummer sunrise; the opposite direction points to the midwinter sunset. Now, the moon's rising and setting positions on a particular date are not fixed, but vary through that 18.61 year period. From one of the station stones at one end of the rectangle, the two stones at the other end mark the two extreme positions of the midsummer moonrise; and conversely, from one stone at the latter end, the two stones at the former end mark the extremes of midwinter moonset. Other stones in conjunction with the station stones form additional such alignments, some involving additional directions such as midwinter sun*rise* and equinox rather than solstice alignments. Several alignments are repeated using different stones. The angles between the different alignments are latitude-dependent, so that the station stone rectangle could be a rectangle at a different latitude only if different alignments were used. About 1750 BC, Stonehenge II was constructed, apparently by a different race/tribe of people. They enlarged the entranceway, with more banks, and they brought in the first circles of stone. They started to build a double circle, about 70 feet in diameter, of 5-ton stones, with extra stones marking the entranceway. However, this was never completed. Hawkins speculates that there were to have been 37 pairs of stones in the circle and that it was to have been used like the Aubrey holes, with a marker moved annually. 18.61 is close to 37/2, but of course, it is closer to 56/3. A third set of people then took over and built Stonehenge III beginning in about 1700 BC. They disposed of the 5-ton "bluestones" of the previous phase and set up the really big stones that give the place its modern name. There was originally a complete circle of 30 upright stones of about 25 tons each, connected all around with lintels. This is called the "sarsen circle from the name of the stone used (a type of sandstone; the heel stone is also sarsen). Inside the sarsen circle were five even bigger sets of stones called "trilithons", each consisting of two sarsen uprights of 45-50 tons and a lintel over them. These were set in a horseshoe arrangement with its opening toward the entranceway. Incidentally, about half of these large stones are now standing, but several of these were re-erected in the 20th century after having fallen in earlier times. The openings in the trilithons are quite narrow and it is possible to look from each one at only a few openings in the sarsen circle; in some cases the angle of view was deliberately widened by bashing a notch for the viewer's head. When the permitted lines of sight are examined, they turn out to duplicate those that I enumerated for Stonehenge I: midsummer sunrise and sunset, midwinter sunrise and sunset, and several of the extreme moon positions. In addition, the Stonehenge I alignments still worked in Stonehenge III, for the most part, because the circle was built just *inside* the lines of the station stone rectangle. After that, some of the bluestones were re-erected inside the newer structure, but then they were taken down again. Then two circles of holes were dug, called the Y and Z holes; these are outside the sarsen circle but well inside the Aubrey holes. They have 29 and 30 holes and Hawkins conjectures that a marker was moved around them each *day* to help keep track of the months. Finally, the bluestones were brought back into the structure again; this time a horseshoe of bluestones was set up inside the horseshoe of trilithons, and a circle of bluestones just inside the sarsen circle. Hawkins conjectures that there may have been 59 stones here, possibly intended at one time to be put in the Y and Z holes. I should make a final remark about the fact that nothing has turned in in the various holes that is obviously a marker. First, the marker may simply have been taken away over the centuries. Second, it need not have been as enduring an object as a piece of stone, or even any object; there were cremations in the Aubrey holes, and perhaps they were done in different holes in a systematic fashion. Third, parts of Stonehenge have never undergone archaeological excavation; and other parts have been badly excavated in the past, in particular by a Col. Hawley who was a "dedicated digger" but didn't trouble to write down much about what he dug up; so the marker may yet be awaiting discovery or may have been ignored. I will let an anonymous Boston University student have the final word... "OK -- so it was a computer -- but it was only a single-purpose machine." -- Mark Brader For I do not believe that the stars are spread over a Toronto spherical surface at equal distances from one center; utzoo!sq!msb I suppose their distances from us to vary so much that msb@sq.com some are 2 or 3 times as remote as others. -- Galileo This article is in the public domain. * Origin: Paranet(sm) - The world's leading UFO Investigative News Network ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (5587) Fri 2 Aug 91 12:06p By: Susan O'brien To: All Re: Re: Stonehenge St: Sent Reply to 5089 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @UFGATE newsin 1.27 From: sobrien@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Susan O'Brien) Date: 1 Aug 91 01:39:18 GMT Organization: LMSC - Information Services Message-ID: <1991Aug1.013918.19001@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> Newsgroups: sci.space In article <1991Jul21.211600.23148@agate.berkeley.edu> fcrary@lightning.Berkeley.EDU (Frank Crary) writes: >> >>that the PURPOSE of the pits was to do so. For example, using the number >>of joints on my fingers, and a complex counting system, I can calculate >>the date of Easter (given the date the previous year.) This does not mean >>that my fingers were designed to do this... and later writes > >By the way, the system I discribed for calculating the date of Easter is >no more complex than that for using Stonehenge to predict eclipses. I >again should have said "not obvious." The date of Easter in a given year has very little to do with its date in the previous year. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That means your finger-knuckle method will have to include an understanding of lunar and solar cycles. If all you know to start with is the date of Easter in the previous year ... well, I don't know about this "no more complex" claim. No more complex than every so often moving a couple of stones from pit to pit around a ring and seeing when they meet up? -- Sue O'Brien, Sunnyvale, Calif. sobrien@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (this .sig intentionally left boring) * Origin: Paranet(sm) - The world's leading UFO Investigative News Network PARANET FILE NAME: STONEHEG.TXT
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